Communities, businesses, and individuals are taking action to document their vulnerabilities and build resilience to climate-related impacts. Click dots on the map to preview case studies, or browse stories below the map. Use the drop-down menus above to find stories of interest. To expand your results, click the Clear Filters link.

Located just inland from the Gulf Coast, the City of Houston faces an array of climate vulnerabilities: flooding, drought, tropical cyclones, and extreme heat can all affect the city's population and industries. Federal, state, municipal, and non-profit agencies combined their resources in a pilot project to plan for climate resilience.

Homer, Alaska, has been taking action to reduce climate change for almost a decade. As the ten-year anniversary of their first plan looms on the horizon, the community is engaging in conversations about adaptation.

After catastrophic flooding in New Orleans destroyed two hospitals, the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System is planning a replacement facility that will incorporate resilience against future extreme events.

Puerto Rico's San Juan Bay Estuary faces multiple threats, including heavy use by urban populations and impacts of climate change. A workbook from the EPA's Climate Ready Estuaries program helped them catalog, prioritize, and address their climate risks.

Stakeholders of the Morro Bay National Estuary Program in California worked with resources from the EPA's Climate Ready Estuaries program to identify their climate risks. Their results helped them prioritize actions for building resilience.

As El Niño can bring severe drying conditions to the islands of American Samoa, groups collaborated to ensure that decision makers have access to the local climate and water data they need to recognize—and prepare for—the threat of drought.

Each winter, massive waves attract surfers and visitors to the North Shore of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i. Some years, the waves cause severe erosion, and continuing sea level rise will accelerate this issue. Residents and the state are taking steps to preserve homes and beaches.

Residents of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, have found an unlikely but financially rewarding pairing: county efforts to keep mosquito populations under control are reducing residents' flood insurance premiums.

The City of Long Beach, California, sees signs of climate change on land and in the ocean. After compiling the City's official climate assessment report, local stakeholders also produced a more accessible and user-friendly summary version and shared it broadly to stimulate informed discussion and decision making across the city.

Faced with episodic high-tide flooding, partners in Charleston, South Carolina, calculated the potential extent and frequency of similar flooding in the future. Focus group feedback on this information helped organizers design an informative fact sheet.

Sea level rise is changing the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, endangering homes, habitats, and vital infrastructure. Stakeholders from a diverse array of sectors around the Bay are participating in preparations through a regional partnership.

In Massachusetts, Manchester-by-the-Sea's wastewater treatment plant is located right on the coast. The town's water utility is working with the EPA's Climate Ready Water Utilities program to consider its adaptation options.

Lying directly south of New Orleans on Louisiana’s coast, Grand Isle often bears the brunt of strong waves and storm surge in the Gulf of Mexico. To protect this town and inland parishes from flooding, engineers constructed a first line of defense.

People who live on low-lying islands are reminded daily of the threat they face from coastal flooding. An unexpected disaster prompted a community in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to consider how to notify people of potential events and help them know how to respond.

A federal study assessed vulnerabilities of transportation infrastructure to extreme events in Mobile, Alabama. The effort also resulted in tools and approaches that other transportation departments can use to assess and address their own vulnerabilities.

With valuable cultural and dietary assets at risk from sea level rise, this Pacific Northwest Tribe developed a plan to identify community adaptation priorities and concerns, and charted a course of action to address them.

For many decades, farmers built low walls or dikes across coastal wetlands in Oregon to extend their farmland. Now, efforts to restore wetlands and prepare for sea level rise require information about where these dikes are and who is responsible for them.

Louisiana’s Highway 1 carries a significant fraction of the gas and oil that comes from the Gulf of Mexico to distribution points in the United States. Faced with rising seas and sinking land, would the cost of rebuilding the road be worth the investment it required?

Rising seas and coastal erosion are eating away at the barrier island on which the Alaska Native Village of Kivalina rests. Residents and others are making concerted efforts to move the community to safety.

When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey, homes and businesses along developed portions of the shore sustained substantial damage. Just down the beach, neighborhoods located inland from beaches with natural dune systems fared much better.

Coastal erosion has repeatedly damaged bike paths and parking lots near Ventura, California. It took local groups with varying viewpoints more than a decade to agree upon a strategy, but the first phase of their solution is now complete.

One of Southern California’s few remaining tidal marshes—and the habitat it provides for marine life and endangered birds—is threatened by sea level rise. A collaborative effort is underway to help these wetlands stay above water.